As one familiar with the board game art, I am aware that many board games are available which involve the movement of playing pieces along various pathways of movement. Such games range from those such as Tic-Tac-Toe, where game pieces are moved on pathways of movement consisting of the squares formed by intersecting parallel lines, to various other games wherein playing pieces are moved along recessed tracks and the like.
Before filing a patent application for my improved board game and method of play thereof, I caused a search to be made through the records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and located the following patents and other pieces of prior art:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Title Date ______________________________________ 701,484 George N. Johnson 1902 970,257 McDonald et al. 1910 1,299,391 T.J. Sylvester 1919 2,753,187 N.J. Orsini 1956 2,788,974 Pick 1957 3,603,589 Sonntag 1971 Breck Catalog 1970 ______________________________________
The above-listed prior art is relevant to the present invention only in that it discloses board games using spherical playing pieces, which are used in one modification of my invention, and does disclose recesses into which the spheres or balls may come to rest. However, none of them disclose the particular combination of features found in my invention, i.e. a plurality of intersecting passageways, with or without an interconnecting passageway connecting the ends of the intersecting passageways, and none of them disclose the idea of needing to have two rows of a like color in order to win the game. Thus, even though this is the best prior art of which I am aware, it is my opinion that it does not affect the patentability of my invention.